10 Smartest Villain Plans In Horror Movies

The Plan: Assuming the shape of other organisms.

It could be argued that the eponymous Thing from John Carpenter's 1982 classic constitutes a mildly erroneous entry on this list.

This is due to the fact that the entity's "plan" is a plan in the same manner a snow leopard effortlessly blending into the rocky slopes of the Himalayas before taking down a wild goat is a plan. However, considering the deviously intelligent results of the Thing's powers of assimilation, we'll let that slide.

The Thing's very existence technically constitutes a devious plan - this parasitic extra-terrestrial absorbs its victims before assuming their exact appearance. The concurrent effect is that the unfortunate characters find themselves robbed of a vital necessity for survival when confronted with a camouflaged apex predator hunting them - the ability to trust the people around them.

The Thing's plan, brought about by its inherent nature, is to turn its victims against each other. As the horrifying monstrosity exploits the haze of fearful paranoia over who is human and who isn't, picking off its prey one at a time becomes far easier. Whether this is the Thing's conscious intention or the creature's alien instincts taking over is left to the audience's interpretation, but one thing is for sure.

The terrifying innate ability of Carpenter's creation has the same effect on people as the most well thought out of villainous plans.